Classic Poem

PART SECOND

Tis a morn for a bridal. The merry bride bell
Ringeth loud through the green wood that skirts the chapelle,
And the priest and the altar awaiteth the bride
And the grave young sacristans jest slyly aside
At the work shall be doing;

While down through the wood rides the fair companie,
The youths with the courtship, the maids with the glee
Till the chapelle cross opens to sight and at once
All the maids sigh demurely and think for the nonce
So endeth a wooing!

And the bride and bridegroom are leading the way
With his hand on her rein and a word just to say.
Her dropped lids suggest the replyings beneath
While the little sweet smiles come and go with her breath
If she sigheth or speaketh.

And the tender bride['s] mother breaks off unaware
From an Ave to trow that her daughter is fair,
But in nearing the chapelle and glancing before
She seeth her little son stand at the door —
Is it play that he seeketh?

Is it play? when his eyes wander innocent wild
Yet sublimed with a sadness unfitting a child.
He trembles not, weeps not, his passion is done
And meekly he kneels in their midst, with the sun
On his head like a glory.

" Oh! merry fair maids! ye are many, " he cried,
" But in fairness or vileness who matcheth the bride?
" Oh! merry brave youths! ye are many, but whom
" For courage and woe can ye match with the groom,
" As ye see him before ye? "

Outspake the bride's mother, " The vileness is thine
" Who would'st shame thine own sister, a bride at the shrine. "
Outspake the bride's lover, " The vileness be mine
" If he shame my own wife, at hearth or at shrine
" And his charge be unproved. "

" Bring the charge, prove the charge, brother, speak it aloud
" That thy father and hers , hear it deep in the shroud! "
" Oh! father, thou seest , for dead eyes can see,
" How she wears in her bosom a Brown Rosarie,
" Oh Father beloved! "

Outlaughed the bridegroom and outlaughed all
The maidens and youths by that old chapel wall.
" So she weareth no love gift, kind brother, " quoth he,
" She may wear, and she listeth, a Brown Rosarie
" Like a pure hearted lady! "

Then swept through the chapel the long bridal train,
Though he spake to the bride, she replied not again,
Oh! as one in a dream, pale and stately she went
Where the altar lamps burn o'er the great sacrament
Faint with daylight, but steady!

But her brother had passed between them and her
And calmly knelt down on the high altar stair
Of an infantine aspect so stern to the view
That the priest could not smile as he used to do
When a child knelt before him.

He knelt like a child marble-carved in white
That appeareth to pray o'er the tomb of a knight
With a look taken up to each iris of stone
From the greatness and death where he kneeleth, and none
To the mother that bore him.

" In yon chapel, oh priest! ye have wedded and shriven
" Fair brides for the hearth, and fair sinners for heaven;
" But this fairest my sister ye think now to wed,
" Bid her kneel where she standeth, and shrive her instead —
" Oh shrive her, and wed not! "

In tears the bride's mother: " Oh! Priest, unto thee
" Would he lie as he lied to this fair companie! "
In wrath the bride's lover: " This lie shall be dear.
" Speak it out, boy, the saints in their niches shall hear,
" Be the charge proved or said not. "

Serene in his childhood he lifted his face,
And his voice sounded holy and fit for the place:
" Look down from your niches, ye still saints, and see
" How she wears in her bosom a Brown Rosarie.
" Doth she wear it for praying? "

The youths looked aside; to laugh then were a sin,
And the maidens' lips trembled with smiles shut within.
Quoth the priest, " Thou art wild, pretty boy. Blessed she
" Who prefers at her bridal a brown rosarie
" To a worldly arraying! "

The bridegroom spake low and led onward the bride
And before the high altar they kneel side by side.
The rite book is opened, the rite is begun,
They have knelt down together to rise up as one.
Who laughed by the altar?

The maidens looked upward, the youths looked around,
The bridegroom's eyes flashed from his prayer at the sound;
And each saw the bride, as if no bride she were,
Gasping cold at the priest without gesture of prayer
As he read from the Psalter.

The priest never knew that she did so, but still
He felt a power on him too strong for his will,
And whenever the Great Name was there to be read,
His voice sank to silence, That could not be said
Or the air would not hold it!

" I have sinned, " quoth he, " I have sinned I wot, "
And the tears ran adown his pale cheeks at the thought.
They dropped on the book, but he read on the same
And aye was the silence where should be the Name
The sacristans have told it.

The rite book is closed; the rite being done,
They who knelt down together, have risen as one.
Fair riseth the bride. Oh! a fair bride is she,
But for all (think the maidens) that Brown Rosarie,
No saint at her praying.

What aileth the bridegroom? he stands stony eyed,
Then suddenly turning he kisseth the bride.
Cold, cold, he glanced upward fear-stricken and mute.
" My own wife, " he said, and fell dead at her foot
In the word he was saying.

They have lifted him up, but his head sinks away
And his face sheweth bleak in the sunlight, and grey.
Leave him now where he lieth, for oh! never more
Will he kneel at an altar, or stand on a floor
With that wife gazing on him.

Long and still was her gaze, while they chafed him there
And breathed on the mouth, whose last life kissed her;
And when they stood up, only they , with a start
The shriek from her soul struck her pale lips apart —
She hath loved and forgone him.

And low on his body she sinketh adown.
" Didst call me, beloved, thine own wife, thine own?
" Then take thine own with thee; thy coldness is warm
" To the world's, cold without thee. Come teach me thy calm —
" I would learn it, beloved. "

She look'd in his face, earnest, long as in sooth
There was hope of an answer, then kissed his mouth,
And with head on his bosom wept, wept, bitterly,
" Now O God! take pity, take pity on me!
" Let the sin be removed! "

She was ware of a shadow that cross'd where she lay,
She was ware of a presence that curdled the day.
Wild she sprang to her feet: " I surrender to thee
" The broken vow's witness, the foul Rosarie!
" I am ready for dying! "

She dashed it in scorn, to the hollow paved ground
Where it fell mute as snow, and weird music round
Crept up like a chill — up the aisles long and dim
As the fiends tried to mock at the choristers' hymn,
But moaned in the trying.